Reader Spotlight: Evan Marien

Meet bassist Evan Marien, our player in the spotlight for August 12, 2009.

Bio:

Voted one of the three “Most Exciting New Players” in the world by the readers of Bass Player magazine, Evan Marien is quickly becoming one of the most talked about electric bassists on the funk/fusion scene. A recent grad of Berklee College of Music in Boston, he has worked with some of the greatest musicians in the world including David Fiuczynski, Jack DeJohnette, Kenwood Dennard, Greg Osby, Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Lovano, John Blackwell, Joseph Wooten, Fred Wesley, Deantoni Parks and Wayne Krantz.

Location:

Boston and NY, USA

Day gig:

Teaching lessons and studio work

Years experience:

I’ve been playing for 10 years now, I’m 23 years old.

Band(s):

I play in David Fiuczynski’s Trio along with Jovol “Bam Bam” Bell. We have played out on the East Coast and did some shows in Chicago and St Louis supporting his latest release “KiF Express”.

Gigs:

David Fiuczynski, myself and Jovol are playing at the Berklee Performance Center on August 18th, with special guest Greg Howe. We will be playing cuts from Fuze’s album “KiF Express” and then Greg is going to come out and play with us on some of his arrangements and compositions. I’m also on a tour in Oct with David Fiuczynski.

Gear:

The bass I use the most is my Ken Smith 5 string Burner. I use a Boss OC-2 Octave pedal, Digitech Synth Wah pedal, and a BB Preamp Distortion box that I got from David Fiuczynski. I have all of those running into a Ernie Ball Volume Pedal. For the past couple of years, I was very unhappy with the tone of every amp I ever got to play through. I just didn’t feel like I was hearing what I wanted to hear. Thankfully, I discovered Markbass and I couldn’t be happier with my sound. Besides making superior amplifiers, they have an amazing Artist Relations department that cares about their artists and supports them, it truly is a wonderful family to be a part of.

Why I play the bass

My Jr High band teacher. I played Trombone in grade school, he needed a bassist for the Jr High Jazz band. He thought it was a good idea since I could already read in bass clef. He was right.

Bass superpower/claim to fame?

Although I don’t believe that any bass player should think they have anything greater than another, I guess it would be my harmonic knowledge and the application of it to the jazz/fusion idiom. I like to think my bass playing is supportive, in other words “knowing” the role of the bass, but at the same time I hear places where I can add statements to the music happening. My solos… well you can be the judge of that. Please visit http://www.myspace.com/evanmarien and check out some of the songs. Plenty of bass playing and bass solos for all.

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[…] But for now, I thought I’d share the news that I’m featured in bass site NoTreble.Com’s latest Player Spotlight. NoTreble is a fantastic resource for all things bass related so I’m really honoured to have been asked, and to be the second ever player to be featured, the first being the wonderful Evan Marien. […]